Day One - Vancouver to Fort Langley

What a day!!!  So exciting - today is the first day of the trip from Vancouver to Calgary.  It's a total of 15 days. We ride 13 days and have two rest days.

I had a good sleep last night. I was in bed VERY early.  I went to the local pub and had a good dinner by myself.  I'm not sure what the others were doing - I never saw anyone.  Back to the dorm to read my book which is very exciting, but let's face it - I was tired and so I was asleep EARLY. That meant I was awake very early, but not ready to get up.

Finally at 6 AM,  I "forced" myself out of bed!   Took mere minutes to get ready and take my stuff to the truck. Had some breakfast - I'm not super hungry on these trips despite the number of calories that I burn in a day. Yeah - maybe I'll come back a pound or two lighter?

Got my brakes fixed  yesterday -  Mike to the rescue. You would think by now that I would remember they have to go in this particular SLOT or they don't fit properly. 

At last it was 8 AM and the entire group was assembled.  Yes that first day is  a bit of a culture shock for those who have not done one of these trips.  Where do I put my stuff?  what should I take with me?     All very legitimate questions.  Once we were all together, we rode to the Museum of Anthropology at UBC and had a group photo taken and then we were off.

Since everyone was deciding if they were going to take the scenic route? Through Stanley Park?   I just headed out.  Ooops - missed the first turn, but Mike was behind me and so we stuck together for the day.  We zigzagged through Vancouver - so actually we quickly got on track - just a slight detour and then we had no problems getting out of Vancouver.  It's one thing to get lost and have to backtrack and it's another to take a different route. Since we knew where we were going - we were NOT lost and no backtracking.

I was a bit worried as I haven't done the amount of training that I would have liked and I wasn't sure how my knee was going to hold up - I know - trial by fire!!!   Deep down, I knew both were going to be OK - it was how much pain I was going to be in!  So far - so good! Although my quads were telling me they weren't happy on some of the hills.  Hills?  These were babies compared to what we're going to be riding. 

We made decent time and were in Fort Langley shortly after noon.  No - we didn't stop to look around or to take pictures. Oh - I took one picture of the car sculpture in Vancouver. At one point, we stopped at a place that toots itself as a bakery, among other things, but there were very little baked goods so I didn't buy anything.

Because of that stop, we were now a few minutes later and hard to believe but we ran into some people that Mike knew from a previous trip in South America. How amazing was that!!  They were also on their way to Fort Langley - which was about 15 KM away at this point. So we rode with them.  I peeked from time to time at the map directions to see if the locals knew a different way to get to Fort Langley. Nope - same directions as we had. Not that I doubted our directions, but maybe there was a short cut!  Not so!

We went over a couple of bridges - Port Coquitlam and Golden Ears Way which I think is in Langley. Bridges - my favourite thing.  

One of the interesting things about these trips is the people.  I'm not going to reveal anything specific, but it's interesting to hear people talk and you can learn an awful lot about people just by listening and seeing how they interact with other people.  Some people are all about themselves!!!!   I love it!   I have my own little space carved out and so I don't have to listen to them!  Well right now I do since I'm using the picnic table to create the blog!

Mike and I came directly to the camp ground -  about 12:30, but the truck wasn't here and so we went back into the Village to get a bite to eat. We ate at a local pub which was great. While I was hungry, I couldn't eat my entire meal so I had it packed up and I just finished it for my snack.

And I have to confess that I needed a nap!   I set the timer to one half hour as I don't want to over nap or I won't be able to sleep tonight. I'll be looking forward to going to bed after dinner!!!

The only thing that is a bit of a pain is getting into and out of my tent.  I don't feel comfortable putting pressure directly on my knee and well - I probably look like a very old lady getting in and out, but I don't care!!!!   Hopefully that will be cured real soon!!!

On that note - I'm out of here.  Going to see if I can upload a picture or two.

Total KM  72.62

Have a great day!

Ciao!!!